Tips For Decluttering Your Home

Without consciously planning to declutter our home at the start of each year, it has become an annual January event. I guess as the house fills at Christmas time, my natural reaction is to eliminate the unnecessary and unused from the home.

The day after we returned from our lovely Christmas away I started decluttering. The kids were very lucky with what they received and my husband is a big proponent of something in, something out when it comes to the kids’ possessions. So while not necessarily matching one for one items, before we unpacked their clothes and Christmas presents, the kids and I worked together to declutter the kids rooms.

Decluttering the kids clothes

We took away clothes that were too small, not being worn or were in poor condition. This was the hardest part for me as there were many items of clothing of the kids that I really like, but they haven’t worn for some time and when I asked them if they would wear it again they said they wouldn’t.

The logical part of me knows that there is no point keeping the clothes if they are not going to be worn, but there is a part of me that wishes the kids would wear them and wants to keep them just in case! I fought that this time and the clothes were sorted into appropriate bags:

Decluttering the toys

With our youngest of our children starting school this year, it is the perfect time for us to start declutttering the number of toys we have in our home. We actually started this before Christmas. My eldest sister had very kindly lent us her family’s amazing collection of Brio trains – two large plastic tubs full once we added our collection to it. These have now returned to her and will make the way around the family to nephews and nieces as age appropriate.

Age appropriateness was the focus of the toy decluttering. What toys and games do we have that are now too young for the members of our family?

Again we sorted toys in to appropriate groups:

To hand down now

To donate

To bin

To hand down once school starts

To keep in the attic

We added two new groups in this decluttering process. The hand me down once school starts group was for our four year old. There were some toys that he really doesn’t play with that much, but just didn’t want to let go of. We talked about it and decided that when he goes to school he wouldn’t have time to play with them, so we could give them to his cousin then.

The to keep in the attic group was for me. It was only one plastic tub of toys and most of them were for babies/toddlers, but these were toys I had an emotional attachment to and want to keep in case I have any grand kids. I realise this is not very hard core decluttering, but I love that when my kids visit their Nana’s place they have played with some of the same toys their dad did when he was little.

Decluttering the linen cupboard

The kids received new bed linen and we received towels for Christmas, so it was also very much time for a declutter of the linen cupboard. We are now using wicker baskets to sort out towels and sheets. This set up makes it easier for the kids to access what they need.

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Below I have also collated other decluttering posts I have written over the years, to give you further inspiration if you like me, want to start of 2014 with less stuff!

Toy Organisation Tips

Decluttering One Pile At A Time

In this PWK newsletter I share how I was feeling overwhelmed by the amount of clutter in our home. I realised that I was seeing the clutter as one very, very large job. It was so disheartening and seemed impossible. I decided for that week, each day I would choose one area, no matter how small to declutter and re-organise. Click here to read the full post.

Decluttering – Hot Spots Around The House

Decluttering Tips To Get You Back In Order

This is a guest post from a lovely reader Jodie who after having 2 babies under 2, was beginning to feel like her life was spiralling out of control. Completing the simplest of tasks such as preparing dinner, vacuuming, keeping up with the washing so that the children and hubby had clothes in the drawers for the next day, getting to the post office or even to the supermarket to get the essentials seemed impossible. She set out about de-cluttering to bring back her sanity and take charge of her life. Click here to read her full post.

Nicole Avery is a Melbourne mum to five beautiful kids aged 19 to 9. Nic is slightly addicted to spreadsheets, tea, running, CrossFit. Her goal for 2017 is to invest in relationships with family, friends and community to bring joy and connection. Read More…